Patriarchal Suppression through the Images of Holocaust in the Poetry of Sylvia Plath
Abstract
The aim of this article is to give the degree of patriarchal suppression by comparing it to Holocaust, one of the most traumatic episodes by comparing it to Holocaust, in which she is a Jew and her father and husband a Nazi. Why did Plath choose Holocaust to show her psychological suppression? Was it fair to have such comparison? It is the psychological approach that explains this: projection and transference. This means that Plath identifies herself with the victims of Holocaust, the Jews, which was very common for the Jews who underwent the tortures of the Nazi, and, at the same time, she passes her identity and that of her father and husband while she makes the comparison. These images prevail in Plath’s two most powerful poems: “Daddy” and “Lady Lazarus”. Plath began writing for Holocaust after April 1962, the year in which she broke her poetic silence and got revolted against the psychological isolation caused by the death of her father and by her broken relationship with her husband, Ted Hughes. The challenge against the male authority goes to the edges when she is resurrected, after she becomes ash.
Keywords: Holocaust, Jew, Nazi, victim, male suppression.
References
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